The Second Spark
by nuclear death frog
Summary: Originally an episode posted to the Anime Addventure. Some changes and extension made. May be used by me as a neutral connector to other works I have in planning.


**DISCLAIMER FIRST**: I wrote this story but I don't own _Ranma ½_. Prometheus (one of the Titans) is a character from Greek mythology.

**DISCLAIMER SECOND**: This was originally an episode I posted to the AnimeAddventure, but I have made some edits and additions. The background story is Ranma finding a portable hole (Looney Toons origin, I suspect), and in one of his uses it opens up at Mount Olympus, where he drives away the flock of birds and frees Prometheus. Prometheus decides to give him a gift in thanks.

"I have a theory of a technique", said the Titan. "I have thought it over in my mind for a long time, and cannot see why it would not work, but it remains untested." He looked Ranma. "I shall not demand this of you, but ... you are here."

Ranma nodded. "You want me to try it out?"

Prometheus nodded. "It is convenient, isn't it? You are the first person I have met in ... a very long time. There are so many more possibilities now, from the moment of that link's breaking."

Ranma seemed to think about this. "I felt something flow into me a moment ago. Mind telling me what it was?"

Prometheus shrugged. "It is potential, nothing more. Or less. If it awakens, it will be useful to you; if it does not, it will not. I can see no possibility of it being harmful." He paused for several minutes, seemingly lost in thought. "It could be any number of techniques, but there is one I most wish to be tested, so that is what it shall be."

Ranma blinked. "Um, huh?"

Prometheus sighed. "Do not worry. I would not knowingly harm the one I am so indebted to."

Ranma nodded at that. "So... how do we start?"

"First," Prometheus said, "there is something I need to speed my healing. I shall return in a moment." He snapped his fingers and vanished. Moments later, he returned, carrying a small stoppered bottle that Ranma saw contained a reddish liquid. He removed the stopper and gulped down the drink. There was a pause, and then a surge of bright light. When Ranma's eyes cleared, he saw that the injuries had vanished completely, as if they had never been there at all.

"Cool!" Ranma almost yelled. "What was that? How do you make it?" The chance of near-instant perfect healing was greatly exciting.

Prometheus smiled, but it was forlorn. "I am reluctant to disappoint, but that was an elixir made partially of mine own blood. For another to drink it ... especially a mortal such as yourself ... while it might not be instantly fatal, even I do not like the possibilities."

Ranma shuddered, vaguely aware of some great wrongness illuminated by that thought, but he had no idea of what it was.

"And now," began the Titan, "we travel elsewhere." He snapped his fingers again and the scenery shifted.

Ranma looked around. He realized they were on a grassland somewhere, and must have traveled thousands of miles in an instant. "Was that the technique?" he asked.

Prometheus shook his head. "It was not. The technique I wish you to test is much greater than any mere spatial shift. The technique I wish you to test is, in my mind, the greatest technique possible. I can envision nothing better, not in all the possibilities I have seen."

Ranma's eyes widened. "How powerful is it?"

Prometheus looked up to the sky. "It is beyond simple discussion of destructive power. It is without measurable height, without perceptible width, without conceivable depth. Colossal. Vast."

He stared at Ranma. "Yours," he intoned softly, continuing to stare.

Ranma shivered. Even without any knowledge of the technique's function or nature, he was in awe of it. He felt a great weight pressing on his body from every possible direction ... settling in his mind ... invading his soul.

In the warmth of the slight breeze and the afternoon sun, he felt as though he was freezing.

"I," he started, "don't know," he paused, "that I'm worthy to learn that." The words were absolutely true, though he would never have said them normally. All his emotional defenses and ego had been stripped away by the Titan's gaze.

"I am Prometheus," spoke the Titan. "It was I who gave the spark to mortal men. Now I am giving a different spark to you."

Ranma shivered. "What should I do with it?" he asked.

"Do?" inquired Prometheus. "Do as you wish," he answered himself in a soft voice.

For a while neither spoke. Then Prometheus stood straight, and an intense aura of presence and command seemed to emanate from him, though Ranma felt no ki as he understood it.

"You have power," said the Titan. "Few of your acquaintances surpass your power, and only a small number of other mortals worldwide do as well. Additionally, it is surpassed by a few beings who are clearly not human, but who are still mortal. Whether you shall meet more of them in the future or not, is hidden to me."

He paused briefly. "You also have a significant level of control over your power. You can shape it many ways, befitting your desires of the moment."

"However," he continued, "as with all mortals, you are limited: first by the depths of your experiences, then by your imagination, and so forth by whatever tools are at hand for you to use. For you to master the technique I wish to test, I must move you _beyond_ your limitations."

Ranma listened as the Titan spoke. He felt as though he was simultaneously being praised and condescended to, but there was nothing behind the condescension. It was not insulting him ... it was Judging him. It was not the judgment of mortals; it was the Judgment of someone beyond mortal ken.

"Your aura is strong, but it is only yours," said Prometheus. "No single mortal, no matter how powerful, can compare to the aura of the living Earth."

Ranma shivered at those words. "The planet has an aura?" he asked, and immediately he knew how foolish the question was.

Prometheus nodded. "Yes. You have never sensed it because, quite simply, _you are part of it_. The Earth takes its aura from _everything_ that lives on it and within it, and it adds its own force, its own weight, its own personality. The sky, the rocks, the mountains and valleys, the rivers, the lakes, the oceans, the grasslands, the forests, the deserts and tundras, the volcanoes, the layers of the earth below the crust on which you walk. The whole Earth. Its aura is itself."

"And," Prometheus continued, "that is what I will teach you to _tap_. I will teach you to draw a little, and in time you will define your own limits. That is the technique. It is the second spark."


End file.
